Industry TV Recap: A Tabloid Drama

Industry doesn’t have a high opinion of the news media. Join the pile-on. As we enter the fourth episode of the fourth season, the fourth estate finds itself squarely in the writers’ crosshairs. Jim Dycker (Charlie Heaton)—the investigative journalist who has Tender, the show’s dodgy neobank, in his sights—is bickering with an old flame as they walk their baby back to his less-than-salubrious digs. And let’s say he’s less than gentlemanly when talking about how their bundle of joy was conceived.

Jim is under pressure, and it’s showing. That evening he sits at his laptop in a dark room popping pills from a bottle of Ritalin as if they’re Skittles, his face a pallid complexion of despair. At the heart of his troubles is a fundamental problem in much newsgathering: How far is too far to go when chasing a story? In Jim’s case, a lot of bad decisions made over the first three episodes are catching up with him—and fast.